Good morning. Let's open this
morning service with hymn number 158, your hardback hymn. Let's
all stand together, please. With all thy gripping powers,
kindle the flame of sacred love in these cold hearts of ours. fond of these earthly toys. Our souls, how heavily they go
to reach eternal joys. In vain we tune our formal songs. In vain we strive to rise. Those endless languish and our devotion dies. Dear Lord, and shall we ever
live at this foregoing rate? Our love so faint, so bold to
me, and thine to us so great. Come, Holy Spirit, and lead up
with all thy quickening powers. Come shed abroad our Savior's
love, and that shall kindle ours. Thank you. Please be seated. Thank you, Kaelin. Good morning. I believe that's every believer's
experience, what Isaac Watts expressed in that hymn. How disappointed
we are in ourselves, how cold and indifferent we can be, and
how needful we are that the Lord would sent His Spirit to kindle
a flame of faith in our hearts. And I don't suppose there's a
more appropriate hymn that we could sing for the message that
the Lord's given us this morning from Ezekiel chapter 48, if you'd
like to turn with me there in your Bibles. Ezekiel 48, the last chapter of Ezekiel. I want to welcome Mitchell and
Casey McMinn, Scott's boys from California, here with us this
weekend. We're so, so happy they're able
to join us. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we pray
that for Christ's name's sake, that you would take the expressions
of that hymn that we just sang and that you would show us mercy
Lord, we are great sinners and so thankful that we have a great
Savior. Surely, Lord, where sin abounds,
grace does much more abound. And so we come into thy presence,
Lord, confessing that as we just sang, our hearts can be so cold
and so distant and your love so great. Lord, we pray that
you would you'd manifest your grace and
your glory, your love in our hearts. Lord, that in doing so,
that you would inspire us and enable us to love you back in
return. Thank you for your word. Thank
you for the revelation of Christ that you've made to us therein. And Lord, we pray that you would
Open the windows of heaven that you would open our hearts, that
you would open the bread of life and feed our souls on thy dear
son. For it's in his name we pray,
amen. A brother once said to me recently,
he said, when I'm at church, he said, it's the only time that
I'm not thinking about something else I ought to be doing. And
I thought, well, I can relate to that. Seems like every time
I'm doing something, there's another voice calling of something
else I should be doing. Except that when we gather here,
when God's voice speaks, all other voices are silenced. And
there's no other place that we should be, need to be, And I
pray by God's grace would even desire to be than gathering together
in his house where he has promised his presence. And that's the
message this morning. If you look at the last verse
of the book of Ezekiel, he's describing the new Jerusalem
which is the ultimate perfection of the church. The symbol and
the semblance that we have of that now is right here. And he
says in verse 35, it was around about 18,000 measures. And the
name of the city from that day shall be the Lord is there, or is here. The Lord
is here. The name there is Jehovah Shammah. On Wednesday nights, over the
last couple of months, we've been looking at the different
names that the Lord gives us of himself in scripture. Last
Wednesday night, we looked at Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord our
righteousness, from Jeremiah chapter 23. and that we have
no righteousness outside. of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
is all our acceptance before God. And then 10 chapters later
in Jeremiah 33, the Lord said, and she shall be called the Lord
our righteousness. And so by virtue of our union
with Christ, he gives to his children his own name. And we're
able to stand in the presence of a holy God with the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ imputed to us Why? Through faith. Abraham believed God, and it
was counted unto him for righteousness. So when the Lord gives faith,
that faith doesn't save. Christ does the saving. The strength
of that faith may be as small as a mustard seed, but it's the
object of the faith that saves. And if we're looking to Christ
for all our righteousness before God, then we have the hope of
being able to stand in his presence without any fear of judgment.
So it is here with Jehovah Shammah. The Lord says, and she shall
be called Jehovah Shammah. The Lord is here. I wish I could believe that like
I ought. that where two or three are gathered
together, there I am in the midst of them. That hymn that we just
sang expresses my unbelief and the coldness of my own heart. We ought to, we ought to come
here with a, I ought to come here with a much greater anticipation
of the Lord meeting with us and speaking to us and revealing
his grace and his glory to us. For he has said in his word,
she, this church, the gathering of God's people shall be called
Jehovah Shammah. The Lord is here. Our God has been pleased to reveal
himself to us by his names. In the book of Proverbs chapter
19, it says, and the name of the Lord is a high tower. The righteous runneth to it. The righteous runneth to it and
are saved. You remember last Sunday we looked
at, in the book of Judges, where Gideon tore down the high tower
of Ephraim because of their refusal to participate in the campaign
against the enemies of God. And all throughout Scripture,
beginning with the Tower of Babel, the tower is a picture of man's
attempt to earn favor with God by his free will or by his works. And the Lord, as he did, tore
down that tower of Babel. And Proverbs 19, the Lord's name
is a strong tower. It's not going to be tore down.
The righteous runneth to it and they're saved. I pray the Lord
would would raise that tower in our hearts this morning, that
he would reveal to us who he is and where he is and where
he's pleased to manifest his grace and his glory among his
people. The church has many different
names throughout the scriptures. Most often, I suppose, she's
called Jerusalem. Jerusalem, translated, that means
the city of peace. We have peace with God through
the Lord Jesus Christ. And he has said, here, I will
meet with you. Here, I will meet with you. Jehovah
Shema, the Lord is here. Where else are we going? We know
that our God is omnipresent. That's no question about that. There's not a place where our
God is not. Matter of fact, it will be the presence of God that
will make hell, hell. He will fuel the fire of his
judgment and justice in that eternal separation from him.
But where he manifests his grace and his glory, where he's pleased
to make himself known, where he's pleased to give ears to
hear and eyes to see is through the preaching of the gospel and
the gathering of his people. The Lord's telling us that his
church His church, His gathering, His called out ones are Jehovah
Shammah. The Lord is here. He's here. Turn with me to Hebrews
chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12. You know, I've asked the Lord
to help me to preach this message this morning, not as a rebuke,
but as an encouragement. You know, we could We could stand
here and rebuke folks that aren't here and for not coming. And we could all stand rebuked
for our lack of attendance and attention as it ought to be.
I've already said I wish my attention was more than it is when we come
together. But I don't believe that'll be
profitable to us. I don't believe it would help
anybody. It's the promises of God and
the goodness of God that leadeth to repentance. And if the Lord
is pleased to show us from his word this morning, that this
is the place where he has promised to be, then those who are in
need will be here to meet with him and to have him meet with
them. Look at Hebrews chapter 12, beginning
at verse 20, for they could not endure that which was commanded.
Now, the writer of Hebrews is talking about what happened with
Old Testament Israel at Mount Sinai. They could not endure
the law of God. They could not keep God's law. And if so much as a beast touched
the mountain, he's talking about Mount Sinai, if an animal touched
that mountain, It shall be stoned and thrust through with the dart. That mountain was holy and no
man can approach God based on the law. None of us can come
into the presence of God based on our righteousness or our obedience. We can't touch that mountain.
And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I exceedingly
fear and quake. Moses was afraid to go up on
that mountain. And you remember when he did
go up on the mountain, because the Lord called him there, God
had to hide him in the cleft of a rock and cover him with
the strength of his hand in order to keep him alive. But look at verse 22. Here's
what I want you to see, brethren. Verse 22, but you are coming
to Mount Sinai, under the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general
assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven,
and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men
made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant,
and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than
that of Abel. See that ye refuse not him that
speaketh, for if they escape not who refused him that spake
on earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away from
him that speaketh from heaven. No, there's no other voices,
no other voices clamoring for our attention right now, because
this is the place where God speaks. That's what he's saying. You
don't have to fear the mountain. You don't have to fear the law.
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believeth. There is now therefore no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus. We come not to Mount Sinai, but
to Mount Zion. Mount Zion. where everything that God requires
of us, he has provided in the glorious person of his dear son.
And he said, she shall be called Jehovah Shammah. The Lord is
here. He's here to show forth his mercy. This is not a place of wrath.
This is not a place of judgment. The wrath of God has been completely
satisfied. in the pouring out of his fiery
justice on our substitute, our sin bearer, the Lord Jesus Christ,
when he hung suspended between heaven and earth on Calvary's
cross, he suffered the full wrath of God's justice. And the Lord
said, now, now this is the new Jerusalem that has come down
from heaven. This is the place where I am
pleased to show forth my glory and my grace. in 2nd Samuel chapter 5, David goes to Jerusalem to destroy
the Jebusites and turns the city into the city of David, and it
is called Mount Zion. And he sets up his presence and
his power there for all Israel. And the scripture says that David
was 30 years old when he became king. Same age as the Lord Jesus
Christ when he began his public ministry and manifested his person
to the world at 30 years old. And the scripture says that David
reigned for 40 years, which is a whole generation. And that's
our hope. that this Mount Zion will be
the city of David. Who's not talking about David,
the son of Jesse, he's talking about the son of David, the Lord
Jesus Christ. For he says in Psalm chapter
two, he said, I have set my king upon my holy hill, Zion. That's God's promise. That's
God's promise. At this place that our David
has conquered the enemies of God and put away the sins of
God's people. This is the place where he calls
his children together. That's what church means. It
means a gathering of called out ones. He's called us out of this
world to gather together in the place where he has promised to
reign as king and show forth his grace and his glory. forgiveness and his mercy. In 1st Kings chapter 8, Solomon,
who was the son of David, remember David was a man of war and so
he wasn't allowed by God to build the temple, but he gathered all
the materials together necessary for building the temple. If you've
ever been on a construction site, you know that everything you
need to build that building is not going to be in one location.
You're going to have to make a lot of trips to different vendors
and suppliers to get what you need to build a building. Not
so with Solomon. When Solomon began the building
of the temple, every stick, every nail, every hammer, everything
that was needed for building that building was right there
on the site. David made sure of it. And so it is, that building
is a picture of the church. It's a picture of the church.
And the Lord Jesus Christ provided all the materials necessary.
And now he sends Solomon's name means the son of peace. Shalom
is Solomon's name and he's the picture of the Holy Spirit who
is now building his church. The Lord Jesus Christ asked the
disciples, he said, whom do men say that I am? And Peter said,
well, some say that thou art Elijah or John the Baptist or
one of the other prophets. And the Lord said, whom do you
say that I am? There's the key question. Whom
do you say that I am? And Peter said, thou art the
Christ, the son of the living God. We know and are sure of
it. We're certain of who you are.
You've made yourself known to us. And the Lord said, blessed
art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, flesh and blood didn't reveal this
unto you. You didn't come to this conclusion on your own.
My father, which is in heaven has made it known unto you. And
upon this rock. The confession that you just
made that I am the Christ, the son of the living God, I'm going
to build my church and the gates of hell should not prevail against
it. And so in first Kings chapter eight, Solomon, the son of David
takes all the materials that David provided and he begins
to build the temple. And the last thing he did, he
does is he brings in the ark of the covenant, which is another
picture in the, in the scriptures. of the person and work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Over and over and over again,
our God is saying unto us, brethren, I am here and your name shall
be called Jehovah Shammah. The Lord is here. This is where he is. Why would
we want to be anywhere else In Isaiah chapter 62, the Lord says
of his church, he said, you shall no longer be called forsaken,
a forsaken bride, a forsaken wife, one that's been left to
yourself. No, the Lord, that's why the
Lord said, I will never leave you nor forsake you, but you
shall be called Hephzibah. And that word translated means
my delight is in her. And you shall be called Beulah,
translated, which means married. You are my bride. You are the
apple of my eye. This is where, this is where
I'm going to provide you with the presence of my glory and
my grace and everything that you need to stand in the presence
of a holy God. the church, Jehovah Shammah. What a blessing, what a promise. Where are we gonna go in the
world to have such a promise? In Ephesians chapter five, the
Lord speaks of the husband and the wife. And you know, he concludes
that passage by saying, but I speak unto you a great mystery concerning
Christ and his church. And I love the verse before that,
where he says, no man ever hated his own body, but nourisheth
it and cherisheth it. So has Christ with his church,
the body of Christ. He nourishes it, he cherishes
it. No husband's ever loved his wife like the Lord Jesus Christ
loves his bride. No husband's ever provided for
his wife like the Lord Jesus Christ has provided for his bride.
And he says, my name, my name, here's who I am. And by virtue
of your union with me, here's who you are, Jehovah Shema. Lord is here. We're called the Bride of Christ,
the Body of Christ, the Daughters of the King, the Vessels of Mercy,
the Apple of God's Eye, the Vineyard of God, the Children of God.
The Lord has no more interest in anything else in this world.
As a matter of fact, everything else he's doing in this world
is for his church. It's for his bride. And when the last of God's elect
are called to faith in Christ, this world will have no more
reason to exist. That's when the end will come. We might ask ourselves, why am
I here? Why am I here? Well, what brings
us here is a need, a need to know God, a need to be forgiven
of sin, a need to worship. Sometimes the Lord uses other
conflicts in our lives to remind us of our need. But if that conflict
by itself was the only need that we had, and we come to church
for that, those things change, don't they? You know, there's
times of great need in this world, and there's times when, you know,
there's not such a great need, and our attendance will reflect
an on-again, off-again desire to be here. But if our need be
sin, That never goes away. The more you grow in grace and
the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, the more aware of your
sin you become, the greater need that you have. I can tell you
this, young people, I've never had less confidence in myself
and more fear of coming to this place and of worshiping. I'm talking about the fear of
God than I have now. This is an awesome thing that
the Lord has called us to. We have a need. And you know,
even when our need is related to temporal things, it's our
sin that makes those temporal things such a problem, isn't
it? We sing that song, tedious and
tasteless. Adam sang it last Sunday. Palaces,
or prisons would palaces prove if Jesus would be with me there.
You know, it's the conflict of our sin that causes even those
temporal needs to become so, such a problem. And so the sin
is at the root of all of our problems. And that's why we come. We need a Savior. We need a Savior. And this is where he has promised
to make himself known. In Isaiah chapter 6, the chapter
begins with, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. Isaiah went to church. He went
to church on the Sabbath. because he had a need. King Uzziah
had just died in shame. You remember, he's the king that
tried to usurp the authority of the priest, and he became
proud in thinking that he could approach God without a priest. And so he went into the temple
to make sacrifice without the aid of a priest, and God smote
him with leprosy, and he was put out away from the people,
and he died in shame, and now Isaiah. Isaiah in the year that
King Uzziah died feared that God had completely taken his
hands off of Israel. You know, is this the evidence
that God is leaving us to ourselves? As a matter of fact, in chapter
five of Isaiah six, six times, which is the number of man, Isaiah
says, woe unto them. And he's declaring the judgments
of God against Israel. And then after he saw the Lord,
you remember what he said? Woe is me. Woe is me. I am undone. I'm a man of unclean
lips. Yes, I live among the people
of unclean lips and there's nobody here that can help me. Lord,
I've got to have your mercy. It was a need that brought him
that Sabbath. Think about when Hannah went
to church and she needed a child. And this is a picture of what
Paul tells us in the book of Timothy when he says, and she
shall be saved by childbirth. It's a picture of the birth of
the Lord Jesus Christ coming into the world as our savior.
And she had no child and she's pouring out her soul before God. And Eli thinks she's drunk. He thinks she's intoxicated and
he rebukes her. And she said, oh no, my Lord.
She said, I'm in need of God's mercy. I'm pouring out my soul
to him. And the Lord spoke to her, gave
her a promise. She came back a year later with
Samuel, dedicated him to the Lord. Here's what brings us here. We come here because we have
a need. That woman with an issue of blood
had spent all that she had on physicians. And she was worse
off now than she was at the beginning. She had a blood disease. That's what you and I have. That's
why leprosy is used in the Bible to describe our sinful condition
because it begins as a disease in the blood before it manifests
itself. Our babies are born into this
world with sin in their veins. Oh, it may not manifest itself
in an ugly way for some time, but it's there. It's there. So it is with each of us. This
woman had an issue of blood. She'd been to all the religious
doctors and all the churches and all the healers that there
was. And now she had spent all her
money and she's still sick and she's worse off now. Can you
imagine the medical technology back then would have been bloodletting?
And here's a woman who was anemic because she was losing so much
of her blood. She goes to a doctor and he takes
out more blood. That's exactly what religion
does. Our problem before God is that we're sinners. And religion,
self-righteous, legalistic religion, just puts us back under the law.
And it's like bloodletting on someone that's anemic. It just
makes us worse off than we were to begin with. And she had no
strength but to crawl, and she crawled into the crowd. And she
said, oh, if I could just touch the hem of his garment, I could
be made whole. Who touched me? Oh Lord, why
do you say that? There's a whole crowd of people
here. Everybody's touching you. No, no. Virtue has gone out from
me. Someone touched me in faith. Someone touched me because they
had a need. Grace is going out and she told him all the truth.
She was supposed to declare herself to be unclean when she got around
anybody. She wasn't supposed to be touching
anybody or being close to anybody. She told him all the truth. He said, your sins are forgiven
you. That was her real need, wasn't it? All these miracles
that we read of in the Bible are pictures of our need, our
soul need to forgive, to have our sins forgiven. And the Lord
says, she shall be called Jehovah Shammah. The Lord is here. Here, I will meet with you. Here,
I will meet your need. I love it when blind Bartimaeus,
he heard the Lord was coming. He heard and he started crying
out, Lord, Jesus, our son of David, have mercy upon me. Oh,
shut up, Bartimaeus. You're just a dirty, poor beggar. You're just making your, you're
embarrassing yourself and everybody around you. And he cried all
the louder, all the louder. And the Lord called him, said,
what would you have me to do for you? And he dropped, he had,
he had this filthy, dirty, holy coat on. And the scripture says
he dropped it at the curb. What's that a picture of? It's
a picture of the righteousness that we try to cover our nakedness
with. It's the fig leaves that we try
to dress ourselves up in. And he dropped it at the curb
and he came to the Lord Jesus. What would you have me to do
for you, Bartimaeus? Oh Lord, that I might see. Lord,
if you don't give me eyes to see, I won't see. That man had been crippled for
38 years. Where was he? He was at the pool
of Bethesda. He was at the right place. The
house of mercy is what Bethesda means. And the Lord came and
the Lord ministered grace to that man. He said, oh, I don't
have anybody to put me into the water when the angel comes and
stirs the water. No, messenger of God is right here.
The Lord healed him, made him whole. Take up that bed and walk. You see, being at the foot, being
where Christ is, is what you and I have to have. being where
he's promised to speak to the hearts of his people. I pray
that he's doing that right now. I pray he's taking his word,
blessing it by his spirit, and making it effectual to the hearts
of his people right now. No place, if he is, if God's
speaking, If God's speaking right now, and I'm not talking about
the voice of a preacher, that's just the outward voice. That's the audible voice. I'm
talking about the effectual voice of God. It's a whole lot louder
than an audible voice. Someone said, well, did you hear
God speak audibly? No, it was a whole lot louder
than that. A lot louder than that. God speaks to your heart,
you know it's true. And there's no other voice. There's
no other voice to hearken your attention when God's speaking.
Mary knew that. And she was sitting at the Lord's
feet, listening to every word that he had to say. And Martha
came and said, Lord, rebuke Mary and tell her to come in the kitchen
and help me. Oh, Martha. Martha, Martha, you have many
things to encumber you. A lot of things that are calling
your attention, a lot of things that are on your plate, but Mary
has chosen that one thing that is needful. The one thing that
is needful. All those other things are not
needful. All those other voices that call for our attention,
they cannot be compared to the need that you and I have to hear
from God. Jehovah Shema. That's what he's
called his church. The Lord is here. He's here. He's here to meet with and speak
to his people. That's why we come. That's why
we're here. In Luke chapter 13, the Lord
goes into the synagogue and there's a woman there. who an elderly
woman who is hunched over and the scripture says that she cannot
straighten herself out. I saw an elderly lady in the
store recently like that. It just looked so pitiful and
painful. And she was, you know, shriveled
up and humped over with a hunchback and she never asked the Lord
to heal her in Luke chapter 13. But the Lord saw her and she
had been suffering that way for 18 years, the Bible says. And
the Lord told her to stand up. You see, she was in the right
place. She was where, you know, even if we don't have the spirit
that we ought to have to plead for God's help, to be where he
is, to be where he is, is the most important thing. The Lord
said, he spoke to her and told her to stay. And the self-righteous
Pharisees rebuke the Lord because he'd done it on the Sabbath.
And he said, he's got six other days he can heal. The Lord rebuked
them and said, which of you does not leave your ox out of the
pen in order to feed them on the Sabbath? How much more is
this daughter of Abraham more important Is there anything more important?
You know, like I said a while ago, this is not a rebuke. I
know there are times when the ox gets in the ditch and you
can't do anything about it. You got to take it. You got to
take care of it. But if the Lord convinces us that this is Jehovah
Shema, that he is here, then everything else will be Secondary
to that, won't it? You know, I think about what
Thomas missed out on because he wasn't with the disciples when the Lord
appeared to them after the resurrection. And because of that, his faith
wavered, didn't it? But when he came back and they
told him the Lord had been, oh, unless I can thrust my hand into
his side and touch the wounds of his hand, I'll not believe.
I'll not believe. And to this day, what do we know?
Thomas says, doubting Thomas. Why? Because he wasn't there. Wasn't where the Lord promised
to meet with his people. Are there any words more sweet
than for the Lord to say, you are loosed from thine infirmity? That's what he told that woman
in Luke 13. You are loosed from thine infirmity. Lord, that's
what I need. I need to be loosed from my sin. I need to be loosed from the
wrath and judgment of God. I need to be loosed from the
troubles that my sin caused me. in the trials of life? You see,
it's not the trials of life that are trouble, it's the sin in
us that caused those trials to be trouble, isn't it? That's why we're here. Zechariah chapter two, for I
saith the Lord, I will be unto her as a fire round about. And I will be the glory in the
midst of her. And then when the new Jerusalem
is seen coming down from heaven, there's no more sun or moon for
the light and the countenance of the Lord is the light thereof. That's what we have now, the
countenance of the Lord. is the light thereof. Oh, I pray
the Lord will give us a greater anticipation of his mercy and
his grace, and that he would cause us to believe more truly
and firmly that this is Jehovah Shammah. This is his name. This is where
he is. And where two or three are gathered
together. There I am in the midst of them. What a promise. Our Heavenly
Father, we thank you for the promise of your grace
and your glory in the midst of your people. We thank you that
you've made us to differ and that you've called us out of
darkness into thy marvelous light. And Lord, we we confess our lack
of faith and our unbelief. Even when we come here, we thank
you for your word that reminds us again this morning. What a
blessing. What a privilege. What a need
we have. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.